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•^^^ 1 Extension of Ku Klox Act, 



SPEECH 



HON. DANIEL D. PEATT, 



OF IISTDI^N^, 



DELIVERED 



/ 



IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES, 



MAT U, 1872. 



WASHINGTON: 

F. & J. RIVES & GEO. A. BAILEY, 

REPORTERS AND PRINTERS OP THE DEBATES OP CONaRESS. 

1872. 



ELU^ 






Extension of Ku Klux Act. 



The Senate, as in Committee of the Whole, hav- 
ing under consideration the bill (S. No. 656) to ex- 
tend the provisions of the fourth section of the act 
approved April 20, 1871— 

Mr. PRATT said : 

Mr. President: The bill under considera- 
tion has been introduced by the chairman 
of the joint committee of Congress raised at 
the last session to inquire into the alleged 
outrages in the southern States, and by the 
authority of that committee. Ir, simply con- 
tinues in the President of the United States 
the power of suspending the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpus to the end of the next 
session of Congress, as that power was given 
by the act of April 20, 1871. eniilled " An act 
to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth 
amendment to the Constitution of the United 
States." The power which the bill confers is 
no other or different in the circumstances of its 
exercise from that which has been so benefi- 
cently employed by him in nine counties in 
the State of South Carolina. Fortunately for 
the country, he has found it necessary to use 
bis discretion in but a single State, and in but 
a small portion of that. The result of its use, 
in connection with the action of the Federal 
courts, and the employment of military force 
in their aid, has been to put a complete stop 
to outrages in that section of the country. 

Looking at the good results which have been 
accomplished in that most disturbed district 
of the entire South, who can doubt that Con- 
gress acted wisely and in the interest of hu- 
manity and justice in investing the President 
with this power? Nobody has suffered, so 
far as I am aware, who was not engaged in the 
<;onspiracy,oragainst whom reasonable grounds 
of suspicion did not exist. Hundreds of per- 
sons whose guilty consciences informed against 
them, seeing that the Government was in 
earnest in its purpose to put a stop to lawless- 
ness and violence, have fled to parts unknown. 



Law has been reinstated, and protection given 
to life and property by the passage of that act. 

I know, sir, full well how jealous the people 
of this country are of their liberties. They 
regard this writ as their greatest safeguard. 
They are not forgetful of its history and of the 
struggles of the people of England to ingraft 
it upon Magna Charta. The fathers of this 
Republic wisely provided, when they came to 
form the national Constitution, that its priv- 
ilege should not be suspended unless when in 
cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety 
might require it. For myself 1 believe the 
power is inherent in the office of the President 
without act of Congress. An invasion may 
occur or a rebellion spring up when Congress 
is not in session, and when its suspension may" 
be necessary before this body could be con- 
vened. 

But it is unnecessary to argue that question 
or refer to precedents. The only question now 
is whether there is such a condition of things 
in any part of the South as makes it prudent 
to cotitinue in force for a limited time this 
provision in the act of April 20, 1871. The 
object of this writ, as we all understand, is to 
enable any person deprived of his liberty to 
bring his case before a judge that the cause 
and validity of his detention may be inquired 
into. No one disputes the value of the writ, 
nor that it is the bulwark of personal liberty, 
nor that its privilege should never be sus- 
pended except in great emergencies. No free 
State can exist without it. Yet while all this 
is true there are of necessity limitations to its 
use. A man convicted of crime has no right 
to invoke it in his cell in the penitentiary, or 
while standing under the gallows ; nor in times 
of war is its use practicable when civil law 
is suspended and military organizations are 
abroad controlling private action, and the voice 
of the judge is drowned in the clash of arms. 
And so, too, when there exists u wide-spread, 



conspiracy to deprive any portion or class of 
the people of their rights under the law, by 
intimidation, violence, and outrage; to over- 
throw the laws which guard the life and liberty 
of the citizen ; when the local courts are ultei ly 
powerless to deal with the criminals; where 
the conspiracy manifests itself by bands of 
armed men too numerous and powerful for the 
civil officers to deal with them ; when arrests 
with a view to trial and punishment would be 
made nugatory through the complicity or fears 
of the constituted authorities of the State, 
there exists the same necessity for a suspen- 
sion of the privilege of the writ as in case of 
invasion and rebellion. 

Indeed the state of things I have described 
is a rebellion, which is simply a revolt against 
the laws. Its purpose is to set them aside or 
overthrow them ; and it makes no difference 
whether this purpose is restricted to a county 
or spreads over a Slate. Among the Romans, 
from whom the terra is borrowed, a rebellion 
was open resistance to their government by 
the nations that had been subdued in wjir; but 
its most commonly accepted definition is 
"open resistance to lawful authority." But 
Congress has defined with great minuteness 
what sh;ill constitute a rebellion, in the fourth 
section of the act 1 have referred to, and I 
will not detain the Senate by reading it. It is 
adapted to the state of affairs which has pre- 
vailed in some parts of tlie South since the 
year 18G8. 

Mr. President, the question is, shall the 
grant of this power of suspension be continued, 
not indefinitely, but until the 4th of March 
next? The answer to this question must 
depend upon another question, whether the 
public safety requires it. The committee of 
which I have spoken, have spent months in 
taking testimony from every part of" the Souih. 
We have had volume upon volume of the evi- 
dence printed, amounting to several thousand 
pages. The report of the cominiitee and the 
views of the minority, in which the evidence 
is summed up, alone amount to over one thou- 
sand pages. Even the minority do not deny, 
and 1 now quote their language, "that bodies 
of disguised men have in several of the Stales 
of the South been guilty of the most flagrant 
crimes." They admit "they are not to be 
palliated or excused." Tiiat is sufficient lor 
my purpose, although they make haste to deny 
that liie Ku Klux organization is a general 
one, or thai its acts have any political signifi- 
cance. But it seems to me lliat a case is made 
out for extraordinary measures when it is 
proved beyond the power of contradiction that 
m many couniies in dillerent Slate.", the local 
authorities arc; whdily incapai)le of affording 
protection to life, liberty, and property, and 
are unable to convict ami punish the men who 
openly defy ami spurn ihe laws. Weare deal- 
ing with tirrible lacts which none are so iiardy 
as to deny. It is not a question whether the; 
plan of reconstruction was right or wrong, 



nor whether negro suffrage was just or politic, 
nor whether it has proved a success or failure ; 
nor is it. a question whether the State govern- 
ments of the South have abused their oppor- 
tunities, plundered the people, loaded them 
with debts, and squandered the [lublic money. 
All this may be admitted for the sake of the 
argument ; and yet the issue is not met. 

This Government is charged with the duty 
of suppressing rebellion and seeing to it that 
all men entitled to its protection are protected. 
Government is of little value to the governed 
if large bodies of armed men may with im- 
punity prowl at midnight through the country, 
commit murders, arsons, and cruel outrages 
upon defenseless people. The worst despotism 
is better than such anarchy and lawlessness. 

Sir, when I turn to the testimony spread 
before Congress by this committee, taken 
under oath and bearing the stamp of truth, 
my heart sickens with the recitals of the 
wrongs committed and heaped upon the hum- 
ble, loyal, people of the South. The cold- 
blooded murders committed by the Ku Klux 
Klan are not numbered by hundreds, but by 
thousands. In a single county in Alabama 
they number fbriy ; in another, Tuscaloosa 
county, in Alabama, as testified to by the 
venerable chief justice of thalState, they num- 
ber fifty. The cruel scourgings and mutila- 
tions exceed by a hundredfold the murders. 
The cruelties inflicted of whatever description 
are marked by a ferocity, a hearllessness, an 
indifference to human suffering that find no 
parallel in the barbarities of savages. 

The guilty perpetrators add to the bodily 
sufferings the terrors of superstition. The Ku 
Klux clothe themselves in horrid disguises 
j when they go forth u[)on their adventures, 
whii^h give them a supernatural — I should 
rather say an infernal appearance — and they 
disarm the superstitious negro of all hope of 
defense against such emissaries from another 
world by announcing themselves as spirits of 
the conl'ederate dead, clothed with immortal 
power, who have come down from their home 
in the moon to visit punishment upon him for 
his misdeeds. Silently and swiftly in martial 
array, at the dead hour of night, and when the 
inmates of the humble cabin are buried in 
peaceful sleep after the toils of the day, they 
come unannounced save by the sharp barking 
of the house dog. They come in squads of all 
sizes, from a dozen up to a hundred ; some- 
times on foot, most commonly on horseback. 
Tliey and their horses are completely dis- 
guised, and their disguises are such as would 
shake the stoutest heart. They are liioroughly 
armed. Theirs is an errand of war and vio- 
lence. By false and deceitful devices they 
seek to enter the cabin. The Ku Klux is 
as cowardly as he is cruel, as lying and 
deceitful as his victim is credulous. He 
fears tlu! gun of the siirgle man in that hum- 
ble fortress opposed to an hundred. He 
would not give him a single chance for his 



NX 



life ; be would not allow him to sell that life 
at the expense of one of his cowardly murder- 
ers. Most, commonly they effect an entrance 
by deceitful accounts and promises. Where 
these fail the cabin is stormed, the door 
brolien down, and the house filled by armed 
men. Then the tragedy opens. The obnox- 
ious negro, whose crime is that he is a Radi- 
cal, is torn from his family, assailed with 
blows, dragged to the neighboring wood, and 
hung to a tree, or dispatched by bullets and 
knives. Often the females of the family are 
subjected to outrages such as I may not de- 
scribe. Not his cabin only, but many others, 
a whole neighborhood, is visited by this party 
of disguised troopers, where similar scenes are 
enacted, and the work of the night is done. 
They cannot tarry till the crowing oF the cock, 
or until morning sends forth upon the high- 
ways its witnesses. They go as mysteriously 
as they came: no one has seen them save the 
startled sleeper from his window, or the be- 
lated loiterer who crouches in the bushes 
while the ghostly troop sweep by. The brief 
summer night is passed. Morning has come 
dispelling its mysteries and silence, and the 
sun, which looked down upon Abel's blood 
and his brother's crime, sheds his glory over 
the world. Birds of sweetest music greet 
his rising. Flowers and blossoms of peerless 
beauty do him homage, and shed abroad their 
fragrance in the early morning. All nature 
is glad and beautiful and full of peace, save 
where ihe devilish passions of man have turned 
this heaven of beauty and love into a hell. 
The preparations which follow death begin. 
Few words are spoken, for the spell of fear 
and horror is upon all. Of course there is 
the mockery of an inquest which proves noth- 
ing, involves nobody, which simply finds that 
the mangled deceased has come to his death by 
unknown hands; and then the dead are hastily 
buried in rude cofiBns, and the affrighted fam- 
ilies fly the dangerous neighborhood to other 
parts, and there are fewer Radical votes in that 
precinct at the next election. 

And is this all? Alas, sir, it is. What, you 
ask, was there no rising of an indignant com- 
munity; did not justice follow fast upon the 
footseps of the retreating murderers; was not 
vengeance swift on their track? No, sir; 
nothing of the sort. I have heard of a few 
cases — and they are but a few — where the 
sheriff followed the next day with a meager 
posse the tracks of the party to the river or 
county line, and then turned back. Possibly 
the matter was talked over by the next grand 
jury, sotne of whom, or their sons, may 
have been in the raid. Possibly, witnesses 
who knew nothing, or knew too much, 
were sent for and examined. But nothing 
came of this grand inquest, whose office was to 
learn everyiliing, and whose powers were as 
great as their duty was plain. They could 
Lave brought every man, woman, and child of 
the county before them and compelled them 



to testify. The law and the common safety 
demanded that no means should be left unem- 
ployed to find out and present the murderers. 

Now, sir, what I want to emphasize and 
what I want the whole country to understand 
in re-spect to these Ku Klux outrages, is this: 
that out of the hundreds and thousands which 
have been committed in the cotton Slates, 
there does not exist the record of a single con- 
viction in a single court where the murdered 
man or the mutilated man was a loyal negro 
of Radical faith, and his murderers were Ku 
Klux. I am speaking now of the State courts, 
and with six or seven thousand pages of testi- 
mony before me, taken by the committee ; and 
if a single exception exists where punishment 
has followed, I hope to be corrected. 

I have myself questioned intelligent men all 
through Alabama and Mississippi, while en- 
gaged in this committee work, whether they 
knew or had ever heard of any such punish- 
ment, and the answer has been unif)rm. I 
ought to except a few sporadic cases where 
it was said negroes had Kukluxed negroes. 
But the general fact remains, the testimony 
is mountain high that this carnival of crime 
has gone on for years and nobody has been 
found out ; no one has been punished until 
latterly since Congress has armed the Federal 
courts with power to grapple with this terrible 
organization. 

Now, sir, before going further I want to meet 
and answer the excuse commonly given by the 
intelligent white men of the South — the men 
who went into the rebellion; the men who 
constitute the backbone of the Democratic 
party in the South — for this failure of justice. 
1 have asked them a score of times, where is 
the intrinsic difficulty in discovering and bring- 
ing to justice the criminals? The answer gen- 
erally given is, that the men concerned in this 
lawlessness are so effectually disguised and do 
their bloody work at such an hour of the night, 
that detection is impossible — simply impos- 
sible ; and they say this with a look of virtuous 
despair. The less discreet or more honest, 
admit that it would be attended with hazard 
to push inquiries too far or closely; tliat med- 
dlers bent on satisfying their curiosity might 
draw on themselves the attention of this secret 
order. Then, again, it, is suggested that upon 
every grand jury would be tbund men whose 
interest it was to prevent the truth coming to 
light ; that the witnesses summoned may tht-m- 
selves have been engaged in ihe raid or had 
sons or fathers, brothers or friends in it. 

To sum up the excuses it is said they are so 
effeclually disguised, move in such numbers, 
are so bound together by oaths and a common 
sense of danger, and frequently come from 
such a distance, that it is impossible to dis- 
cover who the guilty parties are. But to this 
I answer that the Federal courts, since the 
jurisdiction has been extended to them, have 
iiad no trouble of the kind. They have found 
within the last year hundreds of indictments 



in the States of North and South Carolina, 
Alabama, and Mississippi, against these Ku 
Klux gentlemen, and hirnished a few of them 
lodgings in the peniientiary. That is sufficient 
answer of itself, and proves the excuse set up 
for the criminal default of the State courts 
a sham and a l>ing pretense. 

But the pretense is absurd in itself. It is 
a well-se^iled axiom in the administration of 
criminal justice that just in proportion as the 
secret of a crime is shared by two or more the 
chances of detection increase. It is always 
safest when deposited in a single breast. Then, 
again, how is it possible that fifty men should 
be concerned in a midnight enterprise of crime 
■without previous concert? As they move in 
a body they must have come together at some 
place at a particular hour and by previous ar- 
rangement. They have had a rendezvous some- 
where on the route. Now, the query is, how 
could so many men provide themselves with 
horses, disguises, and arms, leave so many dif- 
ferent homes, come together by so many dif- 
ferent routes, and be absent all night, without 
anybody knowing it? These men have, all of 
them, parents, or brothers and sisters, wives 
or children. They all belong to some house- 
hold where they sleep and eat. They them- 
selves and their horses must show signs of the 
night's hard ride, possibly of its murderous 
work. Somebody nuist note and remember 
these signs. Somebody has furnished the 
horses, the arms, the ammunition, the mate- 
rials for the disguises worn. Somebody, some 
perplexed tailor, has fabricated these ghostly 
garments and artistic head coverings, with 
their openings and horns. These horses have 
all left foot-prints in the earth. A diligent 
search would track half the horses to the sta- 
bles or fields to which they were returned. 
If the whole neighborhood were not in con- 
spiracy to hide the crime and screen the per- 
petrators, some of these many threads to dis- 
covery would lead to their detection. It could 
not be otherwise in a sound, healthy commun- 
ity, which had any disposition to maintain the 
laws. It is a reproach to the intelligence and 
enterprise of the southern people to suggest 
that such crimes could remain hidden. It is 
amazing that to shelter such miscreants they 
will stultify themselves. 

While the committee were prosecuting this 
investigation, and inlelligent Democratic wit- 
nesses were puititig up this pretext, and jire- 
tending that this thing went on unchecked by 
their courts because of" the impossibility of 
discovering the guilty parties, they never could 
or would give a straigiitforward answer to this 
question. "You say it is impossible to find 
them out. Now, suppose the case reversed ; 
suppose a white citi/en of standing and in- 
fluence were tims taken out of his bed at night 
Vjy disguised men and scourged or murdered, 
would there be the same apathy, the same 
feeble elfort, the same alleged dilliculty in dis- 
covering the guilty parlies? On the contrary, 



would not the community rise up as one man, 
would not a thousand eyes be on the alert to 
note every sign which might lead to discovery ; 
would men rest or let the thing drop until the 
criminals were found and brought to justice ?" 
Without dwelling longer, I trust I have dis- 
posed of this shallow pretext. 

But, sir, who are the guilty parties, and 
what are their motives? I know what 
is claimed by the Opposition here, and 
I know the theory on this subject of those 
who give tone to public opinion in the 
South. They pretend that these cr:mes have 
no political significance whatever, but are 
the work of the poor, the lawless, and 
irresponsible white men of that region, who, 
it is said, are the enemies of the freedman, 
jealous of his lately acquired civil and polit- 
ical rights, envious of the planter's preference 
for his labor, and bent on getting rid of his 
competition. Such is the theory of the mi- 
nority of the committee. They insist that 
these outrages are neither committed nor 
sanctioned by the respectable classes, and 
that they are not to be held responsible for 
them. But is this true? So far from be- 
ing true, I insist that the investigations, thor- 
ough and exhaustive, which hav3 been made 
by the congressional commiitee and in the 
Federal courts, have conclusively implicated 
the intelligent and property-holding classes in 
these outrages, and fixed the responsibility on 
them for their indulged continuance without 
punishment or prosecution even. From whom 
but this class come the funds which support 
these costly military organizations, which sup- 
ply the horses, equipments, arms, ammuni- 
tion, and disguises ; the intelligence which 
directs the movements of these lawless bodies 
and prevents discovery? Who have the 
greatest motives for inflicting these pun- 
ishments? Suppose the charge to be that 
a freedman has stolen cotton, corn, or cattle ; 
the planter is the injured party, and not the 
poor white class, who have nothing to be 
stolen. He is the one interested in punishing 
the thief. He may employ these poor whites 
as his instruments, but he is the moving 
power ; he is the responsible party. 

Colored schools are broken up and the school- 
houses burned by the hundred. This is a 
favorite pastime with the Ku Klux genilemen. 
These brave fellows .specially delight to deal 
with school mistresses. There is no danger 
there. But whoare most interested in breaking 
up schools and instigating raids upon the teach- 
ers and school-houses? I answer, the men of 
prt)]ierty, the tax-payers, the men who hold 
lax- payers' conventions and denounce taxes, 
and compel those who levy them to resign ; 
the men who fill the country with their clamor 
that they are iinpoverislHjd, robbed, and plun- 
dered under the new order of things! 

And then again, whoare the most interested 
in acquiring the political control in the State 
and in the counties? There is no cause so 



often assigned for Ku KIux misdeeds as the one 

that the victim is a Radical and votes the Rad- 
ical ticket. You may take ten cases of whip- 
ping, and nine of them shall be for this cause, 
if the victim, who knows best, is to be be- 
lieved. He hears and knows from the mouths 
of his persecutors what he is whipped for. 
Now, I ask, who is most interested in the freed- 
man's political conversion? Who about elec- 
tion times go to him with smooth speech and 
use persuasive argument to induce him to vote 
the Democratic ticket? I answer, it is the old 
ruling class, the property-holders. 

I am tempted, Mr. President, to turn aside 
a moment to repeat the argument. He is 
reminded how harmonious was the relation 
between the two races when the one was the 
master, the other the slave ; how he was fed, 
clothed, and cared for in sickness ; how in his 
indigence he must still look to his old master 
for employment, food, raiment, protection. 
He is reminded that the two races are depend- 
ent on each other, the one having the capital, 
the other supplying the labor, and that they 
should act in concert ; he is warned not to 
put his faith in these Radical strangers, who 
have come down South spreading pernicious 
doctrines, and who aim to ride into office and 
power on the negro vote and enrich themselves 
at the public expense. 

In stating their argument I have shown, sir, 
who are responsible for these scourgings for 
opinion's sake. It is the old ruling class, the 
men who own the plantations and property, 
and must pay the taxes. They are the men 
most interested in molding the opinions of 
voters. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. Will the Senator allow 
me to interrupt him a moment? Do I under- 
stand him to say that the investigation of this 
commiitee and the investigation of the Federal 
courts prove that the property-holders in the 
South are the responsible parties for the out- 
rages that he alleges to have been committed 
there? 

Mr. PRATT. The Senator understands me 
correctly. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. Then I ask if he knows 
of any instance where those men have been 
prosecuted under the provisions of the act 
passed last session, which gives ample power 
to punish any person who has entered into any 
conspiracy ? 

Mr. PRATT. Certainly ; the records of the 
courts in three or four States are full of such 
cases. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. How many ? 

Mr. PRATT. If you will examine the re- 
port of the majority of this committee you will 
ascertain how many prosecutions have been in- 
stituted in North Carolina and South Carolina. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. I beg to be excused 
from examining the seven thousand pages of 
testimony. 

Mr. PRATT. I will take great pleasure in 
showing them to the honorable Senator from 



Delaware after I get through with my remarks. 

The seven or eight thousand pages of testi- 
mony the committee have taken from quite a 
bulky piece of literature, and I commend it to 
my honorable friend ufion next Sunday or 
upon some leisure day for his reading. He 
will find it profitable if not pleasant. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. I certainly would be 
inclined to avail myself of any suggestion of 
the honorable Senator from Indiana in refer- 
ence to what is profitable reading for the Sab- 
bath ; but he must excuse me if I see proper 
to turn to the pages of the old Bible in prefer- 
ence to the report of this committee. But I 
understood the honorable Senator to be indict- 
ing the whole class of property holders in the 
South. I wanted to call the attention of the 
Senator from Indiana before he made the 
wholesale charge against the respectable prop- 
erty-holders of the southern States to the 
broad terms of the indictment which he was 
making against that people. I do not believfe 
that the declaration of the Senator (worthy 
and highly as he is honored in his own State, 
in the Senate, and in the country) will have the 
eflfect to blast the reputation of the whole south- 
ern people unless he lays his hands on the facts 
and shows the evidence on which that opinion 
is founded. 

Mr. PRATT. If the honorable Senator will 
hear me through, I hope to convince him 
before I am done ; and if he will do the com- 
mittee the justice to read through the testi- 
mony, he will find abundance of cases estab- 
lishing the propositions that I claim here. 

Mr. SAULSBURY. Then 1 would suggest 
to the honorable Senator not to make his in- 
dictment a wholesale indictment against the 
property-holders of the South. Limit it to 
the men who the evidence shows are implicated 
in crime. 

Mr. PRATT. As I said, sir, before the inter- 
ruption, in stating the argument of the slave- 
holders, I have shown who are responsible for 
these scourgings for opinion's sake. It is the 
old ruling class, the men who own the plant- 
ations and property, the men who must pay 
the taxes. They are the men most interested 
in molding the opinions of voters. 

Then in regard to national elections their 
interest is, if possible, still stronger. They 
regard the whole policy of the Republican 
party as having b6en hostile to their class from 
its organization. They point to the constitu- 
tional amendments, the civil rights bill, the 
Freedmen's Bureau, the test-oath, the penalties 
against disloyalty, the enforcement bill, the 
suspension of the habkas corpus, and the pres- 
ence of soldiery in the disturbed districts ; 
and their panacea for all these ills is to put 
down the Republican party. That is the 
dearest wish of the entire Democratic heart 
in the South. They see no end to what 
they call their grievances except in the over- 
throw of the party in power. They are the 
same men who were so impatient of the re- 



8 



straints of Government that in 1801 they 
plunged the country in war and bloodshed, 
stopping at no measures of unscrupulous vio- 
lence in order to overthrow the Government 
many of them had so ofien sworn to maintain. 

Now, sir, who shall tell me that this senti- 
ment of hate toward the party in power, and this 
lust for the political control they once wielded, 
are not sufficient motives to account for these 
outrages and fix the responsibility where 1 
believe, before God, it belongs, upon these 
influential classes of the South? 

Where since the close of the war riots have 
occurred and blood has run in the streets, has 
it not been on the eve of elections? Look at 
the massacres in Louisiana alone in 1808, when 
two thousand freedmen were slaughtered in 
order to carry the election. The negroes hold 
in their hands the power of determining polit- 
ical results not in the State only but in the 
nation. In three of the States they outnum- 
ber tlie whites, and in every soutliern State 
they huid the balance of power. If they can 
Le coerced, intimidated, or cajoled into voting 
the Democratic ticket, or prevented from voting 
at all, then of course the Democrats will suc- 
ceed, and have things their own way. 

This is the key to the whole Ku Klux pro- 
gramme. Here is motive enough to tix the 
reS;iuiisibility of these whippings and murders, 
not only upon Democrats, but upon the intel- 
lige!it and property-holding class of that party. 
To be sure, they may employ the poor whites 
as their instruments; and who doubts that they 
do? But I fix the responsibility on them, and 
reason and all the proofs show they must bear 
it. Who would care to incur the risks of the 
halter but the men so vitally interested in elec- 
tion results? Do I press this argument too 
far? Alas! sir, we have had melancholy 
proof what men will do to overturn dynasties 
and administrations all along the track of his- 
tory, culminating in the assassination of the 
grca" and good Lincoln. From their stand- 
point, the old ruling cla^s of the Snuth have 
the most powerful motives which can sway 
men's minds to obtiiin political ci'uiiol, and 
there is no way to do this but to stifle iha negro 
vote or convert it. 

'J'here may be other causes for wiiich the 
negroes are visited by the Ku Kliix; we know 
there are ; but I believe tliisthe most common 
one. So the negroes v/hipped all say. So 
the motives I have endeavored to set forth 
demonstrate. And yet the minority say there 
is no political significance in these outrages ! 

Again, Mr. President, it is said in excuse 
of the Ku Klux violences that they are in the 
nature of punishments inflicted because of 
misdemeaiiors which the courts will not or 
cannot punisii by reason of the lack of legal 
evidence, while the moral proof is suflicient to 
palisfy Judge Lynch ; or that theoOTensps pun- 
ished are of a character not cognizable in a 
court of law. Thus : a negro has used insult- 
ing language to a white man, or has refused 



to work for him, or has dunned him for his 
wages, or sued him in court. Perhaps he has 
bought himself a bit of land and ia working 
on it ; and not only that, but having freedmen 
at work for ' im, and to that extent diminish- 
ing thesupply of laborto the plantation owners. 
Or perhaps he is lazy and trifling, or talks too 
much or too loudly of the rights of his people. 
Perhaps he is a preacher, and suspected of 
advising his race as to their true interest and 
course of action. He may be a bold fellow 
who understands what the law has done for 
him, and is free to tell his fellow blacks of 
their legal rights, as for instance their right to 
carry arms and defend their persons and 
homes. He has been so bold as to say in 
some political harangue that labor has its 
rights, and if justice were done the wealth of 
the South, mainly created by his people, should 
be divided between the races. 

All these things in the past have been 
deemed valid causes why the obnoxious negro 
should be visited and chastised or killed out- 
right by the Ku Klux. Now, sir, in so far as 
misdemeanors are concerned, if there is any 
proof they were committed, the courts can 
deal with them. If there is no proof, or the 
proof is insufficient, that is the best reason in 
the world why punishment should not be in- 
flicted lest the innocent be confounded with 
the guilty. 

There is another cause for these out- 
rages, not the less true because unavowed. 
They are inflicted often to curb the growing 
spirit of independence in the colored man ; to 
humble his pride ; to teach him his place; to 
show him that though a fceedman, citizen, and 
voter, he is only so on parchment ; that there 
is a power controlling his destiny higher than 
constitutions atid laws ; to teach him that his 
condition is changed in nothing; but name ; 
that he is still the hewer of wood and drawer 
of water he was before slavery was abolished, 
and his status in that respect is not and will 
not be changed. 

It is sometimes pretended that the Ku Klux 
violences are not punished because of the 
inefficiency of the carpet-bag court,s ; but they 
who make this charge confess its insincerity 
and untruth when they admit in the next breath 
that justice is administered between man and 
man fairly and without cause of complaint. 

Again, it is urged in excuse, where colored 
men confined in jail have been taken out and 
hanged by a masked mob, as has been fre- 
quently the case, that this was done to save 
any risk of their being cleared on the trial, 
i'he truth is, there is no trouble in any south- 
ern court in convicting a negro of a crime 
whore the evidence warrants it, and there 
never has been ; the danger has been all the 
other way, that though innocent he would be 
convicted. 

Now, sir, to go back a step and answer the 
plea that the Ku Klux outrages have no polit- 
ical significance. I have given some reasons to 



prove they have. One remains, and that is, 
that the rule is so general as to be almost 
universal, that the persons who are the objects 
of Ku Klux vengeance are all Radicals; — and 
I use the term by which all Republicans are 
known and called in the South. I can recall 
scarcely an exception in the volumes of tes- 
timony which have been taken. It is a most 
significant fact, which I wish the v/hole country 
to know, that when the negro votes the Demo- 
cratic ticket he is never Ku Kluxed ; he is 
taken under protection at once and shielded 
from harm. It is a talisman, a charm, a sign 
upon the lintel of his door that he is to be 
passed over. Hundreds, yes, thousands, sir, 
of the colored people have bought their peace 
and earned their security by voting with their 
old masters ; and when they do, all is well with 
them. The ghostly troop is seen no more ; 
they sleep the sleep of security; they are 
patronized and kindly treated, restored to 
confidence and friendship. 

Those who are smart are put forward at 
Democratic meetings to speak of the beauty 
and loveliness of Democratic principles and 
practices. Nay, colored orators of the right 
stamp are imported from other States by Dem- 
ocratic committees, as was done at Huntsville, 
to harangue mixed crowds of white and black. 
Will ii be credited that in that proud city, the 
seat of intelligence, wealth, taste, and refine- 
ment, during the last presidential canvass 
prominent Democrats, the rulers in the Dem- 
ocratic church, actually imported one negro 
from Tennessee and another from further 
north to address a Democratic political meet- 
ing? How those white aristocrats applauded 
the sable speakers to the echo. How rever- 
ently they inclined their ears and heard the 
Democratic gospel dispensed by the sweet- 
scented orators ! Ah, sir, in the stifled 
atmosphere of that great political gathering, 
they smelt nothing that was not fragrant and 
aromatic. There were seen the proud men of 
that city, the Athens of the South, her lawyers, 
editors, and plantation owners, listening with 
rapt attention to the utterances of these colored 
apostles who preached the true faith. Forgot 
ten were the distinctions of color, of caste, 
and of previous condition. The common cause 
fused the audience into one homogeneous 
political mass. It, was a political love-teast! 

And thus, sir, do I demonstrate that the 
objection of southern men is not to the ne- 
gro's voting, but to his voting the Radical 
ticket. They would welcome universal suf- 
frage to day if the colored men would vote with 
them. Their real cause of grief is that they 
vote with the party which freed them. 

You have heard, sir, and it has been rung 
through the whole country as the original 
excuse for the Ku Klux organization, that 
Loyal Leagues were formed among the col- 
ored people with mi.schievous purposes; that 
they were banded together by oaths; that they 
were controlled by unscrupulous carpet-bag- 



gers, who inflamed their passions and operated 
upon their fears, by persuading them that, their 
old masters intended to reduce them again to 
slavery, and that their only method of escape 
was to vote the Republican ticket and fill the 
offices with Republicans. But this argument 
fails in the certain and well-known fact that 
the purposes of the League were wholly peace- 
able. There was nothing in its constitution 
which looked to violence. Its meetings were 
held in daylight in public ))laces, and there 
was nothing in the oath taken or proceedings 
had which the whole country did not know. 

The very idea is absurd that a secret could 
be locked up in an order composed mainly of 
ignorant, simple-hearted blacks. The whites, 
suspicious of its objects, took early and char- 
acteristic measures to possess themselves of 
such secrets as there were. In the testimony 
taken at Livingston, Alabama, there is a case 
in point. A Democratic editor for three nights 
ensconced himself in an adjoining room where 
he could see and hear all that took place, and 
the beginning and the end of the whole scheme 
was to promote by union and consultaiion the 
success of the Republican party, not by vio- 
lence, but by persuasion and concert of action. 
I do not deny that a certain social ostracism 
was practiced toward such negroes as voted 
the Democratic ticket against the instincts 
and convictions of the race ; but that was all; 
nothing of violence or intimidation toward the 
whites was attempted or counseled. 

Again, it has been urged in excuse of the 
Ku Klux order that after the war the negroes 
were taught to believe that the country was to 
be parceled out among them, at least in part; 
that each negro was to have his forty acres of 
land and a mule; and it is said that unscrupu- 
lous men went among them and sold them 
painted stakes with which to mark the corners 
of their land, and that one of the purposes of 
this order was to arrest this dmgerous heresy. 
I do not deny, sir, that such an idea took a 
fast hold on the colored mind. It was sug- 
gested, no doubt, by the order of General 
Sherman giving the blacks possession of the 
abandoned sea islands and adjoining coast 
lands. The practice of the Government in seiz- 
ing abandoned plantations and leasing them 
encouraged tlie idea. It had its foundation 
in the belief that the rebels had forfeited their 
lands by their treason, and that the colored 
race, who had iu a great degree been the cre- 
ators of the wealth of the South, had the best 
right to occupy and use the lands their labor 
had cleared, fenced, drained, and tilled. Was 
their belief without some foundation injustice? 

Mr. President, all the wealth of the world 
springs from the creative power of industry. 
Need I elaborate this economic axiom? The 
precious stones must be shaped and polished 
by the lapidary. The gold and silver ores 
must be dug from the bowels of the earth in 
distant mountains, crushed and separated; 
and the shining product represents iu its value 



10 



the labor which has produced it. The raahog- 
ony and black walnut trees standing in the forest 
represent small values until fashioned by labor 
and skill into costly furniture. The magnifi- 
cent structures in our cities, what are they but 
so much clay and stone, iron and wood, wrought 
by labor into marvelous forms of usefulness and 
beauty ? The great Capitol in which we assem- 
ble, one of the proudest structures in tlie world, 
has all been wrought out from the quarry and 
the mine. And passing from these works of 
men's hands to the great outlying fields whence 
are gathered the fruits which feed and the 
plants which clothe, and on whose pastures 
feed the animals which furnish food and rai- 
ment, the same law obtains. For without 
labor, persistent and intelligent, these were 
still bogs, or forests, or unfruiiful lands. And 
so in the domains of thought. In yonder 
library are gathered the products of mental 
toil, from the dawn of civilization. \Vhen I 
listen here daily to the words of wisdom, I 
know that many generations have made their 
contributions to the learning which here finds 
expression. When I turn to the distinguistied 
Senator from Massachusetts on my lett, [Mr. 
Sumner,] I know that he is the product of the 
civilization of twenty centuries, and that his 
bands have gleaned the fields of science and 
literature of all these ages ; that his labors, 
joined to the mental toilers who have gone 
before him, have made him the scholar and 
statesman the country honors. 

Now, sir, knowing as we do that the slave 
labor of tlie South filled it with most of its 
wealth, should we be surprised that the colored 
race really thought at the close of the war that 
it was their right to have a portion ol" the land ? 
Had not Congress declared that property, both 
real and personal, should be deemed as aban- 
doned when the owner was absent and en- 
gaged in rebellion, and directed the sale of 
that which wns personal and the leasing out 
of the lands? Had they not seen Treasury 
agents swarming through the country taking 
possession of the property of the enemy, leas- 
ing plantations, and all in the name of the 
Government? Was it not generally supposed 
that confiscation, as one of the punishments of 
treason, would be visited on the men who went 
voluntarily into the rebellion and strove to 
destroy the (io^ernment? 1 do not know, sir, 
but ihatasastrict measure of justice and to the 
extent the Constitution would allow, it would 
not have been right to have confiscated the 
estates of the leading rebels and [<ut the loyal 
blacks in possession. We know the dominant 
thought with them was thai the Government 
wliicli had struck oil tlieir fetters would com- 
pel some restitution for their years of unpaid 
toil, and that this compensation could come 
in no ibrm so a]ipropiiate and just aa in a 
division of the land. It was no wild or absurd 
fancy of theirs, but the very expression of 
justice. 

The minority in their report complain that 



the credulous negroes were alienated from 
their old masters and induced by their carpet- 
bag allies to vote in solid column the Repub- 
lican ticket from the belief that they would be 
reduced to slavery again, notwithstanding the 
thirteenth amendment, if the Democrats at- 
tained power. Well, sir, was there no foun- 
dation for this fear? Without multiplying 
proofs I cite your attention to what was done 
in Mississippi during the first year after the 
close of the war and before the colored peo- 
ple had the right of voting. The thirteenth 
amendment had then been adopted abolishing 
slavery. Was this measure acquiesced in by 
its Legislative Assembly, composed wholly of 
white men, most of whom had been concerned 
in the rebellion ? 

Look at the infamous laws of that session, 
which, carried into effect, would have re- 
duced the freedman again substantially to 
slavery. Take for illustra'ion the act which 
pretended to confer civil rights on the freed- 
man ; consider some of its provisions. One 
was that these people, who were landless and 
homeless, should, on the 1st day of January 
in each year, have a lawful home or employ- 
ment, and written evidence of the fact in the 
shape of a license issued by the proper authori- 
ties. All contracts for labor with freedmen 
for a longer period than a month were required 
to be in writing. If the laborer quit the ser- 
vice before the time stipulated, he forfeited all 
his wages up to the time of leaving. One would 
think this was penalty enough. But no, sir ; 
any person might arrest him, and carry him 
back to his employer, and compel the freed- 
man to pay him for this service a fee of five 
dollars, and ten cents a mile for the distance 
traveled. This, when paid by the employer, 
could be held as a setoff against the freed- 
man' s wages. Moreover, when he left this 
employer without just cause, a warrant could 
be sued out for his arrest, and it possessed the 
virtue of leaping county lines and traveling 
from county to county until the lost was found. 
When the employ{^ was returned to his em- 
ployer, all the expenses of his capture and re- 
turn were in like manner deducted from his 
wages. It was to all intents and purposes a 
fugitive slave law. If any person gave to the 
fugitive ibod or raiment, there was a penally 
ranging from twenty-five to two hundred dol- 
lars, and the law provided if the good Samari- 
tan did not instantly pay the fine and costs he 
might be sentenced to two mouths' imprison- 
ment. If any one enticed a freedman away 
with the view ofgivinghim employment without 
the limits of the State, the fine might be 
$.jt.)0, with imprisonment if not immediately 
paid. There was a general provision that 
whenever a fine or forfeiture was imposed 
upon a freedman the sheriff might hire him 
to any person who would pay the fine and 
costs for the shortest time of service. 

I call the attention of the Senate to the 
vagrant act, passed at the same session. The 



11 



second section (page 90, act of 18G5) pro- 
vided that all freedmen, free negroes, and 
mulattoes of Mississippi over the age of eighteen 
years found on the second Monday in January, 
18G6, or thereafter, with no lawful employment 
or business, should be deemed vagrants, and on 
conviction thereof might be fined as high as fifty 
dollars, and imprisoned, ac the discretion of 
the court, not exceeding ten days. Another 
section provided in case the fine imposed was 
not paid in five days — and you will notice, sir, 
it may range as high as fifty dollars — the sheriff 
should hire the freedman out until his wages 
paid fine and costs. If he could not be hired, 
then he was to be dealt with as a pauper; and 
how that was we shall presently see. 

It was enacted that as white persons were 
compelled to support their paupers, so the 
freedmen, free negroes and mulattoes, should 
support theirs. To effect this the boards of 
county police in each county were required to 
levy a' poll-tax on each colored person, and as I 
read the law, of both sexes, between the ages 
of eighteen and sixty years, which was to con- 
stitute a freedmen's pauper fund, and be 
applied to the maintenance of the poor. Now 
mark what follows. This law provides that if 
any one, young or old, no matter what the 
excuse, should fail to pay the tax, it shall be 
deemed evidence of vagrancy, and the sheriff is 
required to arrest him and hire him out, giving, 
of course, the preference to the employer. 

Again, by another law it was made lawful 
for a freedman to charge a white person by 
affidavit with a crime committed on his per- 
son or property. But mark, sir, the penalty in 
case the accusation was not maintained, and 
to use the language of the law ''was falsely 
and maliciously made:" judgment was to be 
rendered against him for all costs in the case, 
and a fine and imprisonment might be added, 
a fine of fifty dollars, and imprisonment in the 
county jail for twenty days. If the fine, costs, 
and jail fees were not promptly paid by the 
freedman, the sherifl'might sell him into slavery 
until ii-om his wages he could redeem himself. 
I might multiply citations from the laws of 
that session. They were all adapted to that 
condition of ignorance, poverty, and helpless- 
ness of the blacks by which they could be 
again reduced substantially to slavery. This 
was the object of the men who framed the 
laws. They had no right to complain that the 
friends of the negro told him so when he came 
i to be a voter and the question was with which 
party he should cast his vote. And yet, in the 
face of these laws, great complaint is made 
because the freedman was reminded of them, 
and warned that if by his vote the Democratic 
party were installed in power he would be 
reenslaved. It is a terrible crime in the eyes 
of these old masters to be told of their hypoc- 
risy 1 Examine the volumes of the testimony 
taken by the committee, and you shall find no 
complaint more frequent or bitter on the part 
of the men who had lost their slaves thau this 



one, that the confidence of the negro in the 
sincerity and honest purpose of his former 
master was alienated by the teachings of the 
men who came among them. 

I shall notice but a single grievance more, 
loudly complained of, and then I shall be done. 
We are told the South has been impoverished 
by bad government ; that the taxes are burden- 
some beyond endurance; that there is no 
prosperity there ; in fact that a blight has fallen 
on their country. 

It is now but seven years since the war 
closed. We know the condition of the South 
at that time; that its resources were all 
wasted, its people impoverished. We know- 
that the charity of the Government gave 
them food. We know that two unfruitful sea- 
sons followed the war; that the South sent 
emissaries among the people of the North 
asking alms, and that they were freely given. 
And yet complaint is made that the South is 
not restored to its old-time prosperity, and it 
is set down to misgovernment, to bad laws, to 
the policy pursued by Congress. The very 
statement of the argument contains the refuta- 
tion. No allowance is made tor the ravages 
of war, for bad seasons, nor for the disturbed 
condition of society there, which repelled im- 
migration, and for which nobody is responsible 
but themselves. 

But there is much that is false in the charge 
itself. It is true that the basis of taxation has 
been changed, and the land-owners are now 
compelled to pay their share of taxation which 
before the war they did not. But 1 deny that 
State, county, and city taxation is as high in 
the South as in most of the Statesof the North. 
A reference to the census tables will prove that 
in 1870 the rates of taxation were higher in 
New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, 
Massachusetts, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and 
Missouri, than in the eleven States which 
rebelled. The total taxes levied in these 
eleven States in that year were but a fraction 
upward of thirty-two millions on an assessed 
valuation of property of S;2, 206, 440,971, or 
one cent and a half on the dollar. In the State 
of New York taxes were levied in that year 
to the amount of $48,500,000 on an assessed 
valuation of $1,967,001,185, being at the rate 
of $2 46 on the $100. That single State paid 
more taxes than the eleven southern States, 
by $16,000,000, and on a less property basis. 
Why, sir, my own State, the smallest, except 
Vermont, which has been admitted into the 
Union since the Constitution was formed, paid 
in that same year, 1870, about eleven million 
dollars taxes, one third of the entire amount 
paid by the eleven insurrectionary States. The 
per cent, of tax on the assessed value in Indi- 
ana was $1 62 on every $100, while in the 
South, as I have stated, it was but $1 50. 

It will do very well for unscrupulous politi- 
cians to make the world believe that the South 
has been eaten up by taxation, but these are 
the cold facts as given by the census returns. 



12 



For the first time the true principle of tax- 
ation has been applied there and properly 
made to pny taxes according to its value. 
How was it before the war? The false clamor 
made about taxes compels us to go back and 
ascertain the principles upon which they were 
laid in the times of slavery. Take the case 
of Mississippi for illustration. Taxes to sup- 
port the State government were levied by this 
scale : taxable lands paid but sixteen cents 
on every $100 of valuation ; a plantation of 
the value of $10,000 paid a Stale tax of but 
sixteen dollars, wiiile a ten-pin alley, a the- 
ater, a race track, or a barber shop, each paid 
a tax of twenty-five dollars. Think of an 
bumble barber paying a tax as high as the 
ownerof a plantation worth $15,000! A piano 
worth $400 paid a tax of one dollar; the 
owner of a slave worth $1,000 paid a tax of 
seventy-five cents. A white man paid a poll- 
tax of forty cents, while the free negro man 
paid one of a dollar, for the greater advantage, 
I suppose, of ihe government which he en 
joyed. I do not know any other cause. There 
was never a more unjust system of taxation 
than that which prevailed in these States be- 
fore the war. The dominant planting interest 
in the South having the control of poli'ical 
affairs, took good care to save its propery 
from the burdens of taxation and put it on the 
shoulders of others. But I have not time to 
dwell on this subject. 

1 wish to say a single word as to the condi- 
tion of the South as lo prosperity. It is pre- 
tended that there has been none there, that 
she has remained stationary while the remain- 
der of ihe country has bt-en advancing ; and 
here again, sir, we must turn lo tlie census 
tables to learn the facts. 

I gave what was the assessed value of the 
property in the eleven insurrectionary S:ates 
lu 1870. The true value, however, as returned 
by the census, is $2,735 545,451.^ The value 
of agricultural products in those Stales for tlie 
year ending June 1, 1870, was $1307,040,404, 
or nearly one fourth of the entire value of the 
property. Leaving slaves out of the question, 
the census value of property in those Slates ia 
J,heyear 1870 exceeds that of 18G0 more than 
six million dollars, nolwitlislanding the im- 
mense destruction of values during the war. 
In the single item of railroads her prosperity 
is seen in the construction of f )ur thousand 
and two miles, costing $172,500,000, since 
18G0, making the number of miles now com- 
pleted and in oi)Oiatioii in those eleven States 
a little mure than twenty-three thousand. 

Mow, sir, the South complains of corrupt 
legislators and Governors wlio iiave destroyed 
the credit of the Slates and loaded them hope- 
lessly with debt. That this is true in some of 
the Slates 1 liave no doubl. Had the Ku Klux 
outrages been diiecled lo these faithless pub- 
lic servants the world would have been well 
rid of them and nobody complained. 15ia 
what logical connection exists between what 



happened at the capitals of South Carolina 
and Georgia, where bribery and corrupiioa 
abounded, and the whipping of inoffensive 
negroes a hundred miles away? Grant that 
Bullock was a ihief, how does that excuse the 
murder of honest men not implicated in his 
stealings? Grant that a corrupt Legislature 
in Columbia ruined the credit of South Caro- 
lina, what has that to do with the whippings 
and murders in York and Spartanburg coun- 
ties? The apologists for these outrages always 
tell us in excuse that the State governments 
have robbed the people, just as if there was 
the least connection in logic between the two 
things! There is none whatever, unless the 
negroes are punished for having voted these 
men into office. 

Before concluding, I wish to submit to the 
Senate and the country some facts concerning 
the extent of this conspiracy against the rights 
and liberties of the loyal people of the South, 
particularly the blacks, the men concerned in 
it and their purposes, as lately laid before 
Congress l)y the President in response to the 
call of the House of Representatives. Since 
the enactment of the laws of May 31, 1870, 
and April 20, 1871, conferring upon the courts 
of the United States jurisdiction to deal with 
this class of offenses, there has been a most 
startling development of the extent and oper- 
ations of this Klan. The President informs 
us that representations having been made to 
him that in certain portions of South Carolina 
a coniiition of lawlessness and terror exisied,^ he 
requested the late Attorney General to visit 
that State and after a personal examination to 
report to him the facts in relation to the sub- 
ject. That officer, on the 10th of October 
last, addressed lo the President a communica- 
tion from South Carolina, in which lie stated 
that in the counties of Spartanburg, York, 
Chester, Union, Laurens, Newberry, Fairfield, 
Lancaster, and Chesterfield, there were com- 
binations for the purpose of preventing the 
free political action of citizens who were 
friendly to the Constilulion and Government 
of the United Stales, and of depriving the 
emancipated class of the equal protection of 
the laws. The President then proceeds to 
quote the following language from the com- 
munication of his Attorney General : 

" These combinations embrace at least two thirds 
of the uclivo white men" — 

Mark the language, sir — 
"embrace at least two thirds of the active white 
men ot those counties" — 

The counties that 1 have just enumerated — 
"and have the sympathy and countenanco of a 
majority of the other third. They are connected 
with similar combiiiations in other counties and 
States, and no doui>t are part of a grand system of 
c iminal associations pervading most ot llic soutii- 
crn Slates. The members are bound lo obedience 
and secrecy by oaths which they are taught to regard 
as of higher obligation than tlie lawful oaihs taken 
before civil magistrates, They are organized and 
aimed. They efl'ect their objects by pergonal vio- 
leucc, often extending to murder. They terrify wit- 



13 



nesses. They control juries in the State courts, and 
Bometimes in the courts of the United States. Sys- 
tematic perjury is one of the means by which pros- 
ecutions of the membersare defeated. From inform- 
ation given by officers of the State and of the 
United States, and by credible private citizens, I 
am justified in affirming that the instances of crim- 
inal violence perpetrated by these combinations 
within the last twelve months, in the above-named 
counties, could be reckoned by thousands." 

This is not my language ; it is the language 
of a citizen of Georgia, at the time he wrote 
it, the Attorney General of the United States. 
The present Attorney General, on the 19th 
day of last month also laid before the President 
the following communication, which 1 make 
no apology for reading at length : 

Department of Justice, 

Washington, April 19, 1872. 

Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge, through 
your reference, the receipt of the resol ution reported 
by Mr. Poland to the House of Representatives, 
from the joint select Committee to enquire into 
the Condition of the late Insurrectionary States, 
which was agreed to. 

In answer to the first clause of the resolution " in 
reference to portions of the State of South Caro- 
lina," I have the honor to inclose herewith a copy 
of a report made to this Department by Mr. D. T. 
Corbin, United States attorney for that district, 
marked Exhibit A. The report contains a list, a 
copy of which is herewith transmited, "of five hun- 
dred and one names of persons who have been ar- 
rested in that State in pursuance of the authority 
conferred by act of Congress, approved April 20, 
1871;" the names of fifty-three persons who volun- 
tarily confessed in open court that they aj; the time 
of confession " were or had been members of the 
combinations and conspiracies forbidden and macie 
penal by said act;" who pleaded guilty to indict- 
ment, the number and character ot whose sentences 
are annexed; the names of five who were tried by 
jury at the November. 1871, term of United States 
circuit court, the number and character of whose 
indictments and their sentences are annexed; the 
names of one hundred and sixty-two persons who 
were indicted at the same term of court, but not 
tried the number and character of whose indict- 
ments, are annexed ; the names of two hundred and 
eighty-one persons who were arrested but not tried; 
the names of one hundred and eighty-five persons 
living in York county alone who have been paroled 
to appear when required, " and who confessed their 
connection with" said conspiracies; the names of 
others who were paroled are found on Exhibit A, 
from page 3 to page 20 inclusive; the number and 
character of offenses forbidden by said " acts named 
in said indictme ts, or ascertained by confessions or 
other information," being ninety-one conspiracies 
under sections six and seven, act of May 31, 1870, 
thirty-one conspiracies under section two, act of 
April 20, 1871, including eleven prosecutions for 
murder, said offenses having " been committed in 
the respective counties in which the privilege of the 
writ of habeas corpiin has been suspended in the 
State of South Carolina," and "the dates of said 
alleged offenses" being stated on pages from 20 to 
30 of Exhibit A, in the third column. 

Other information relative to the execution of the 
laws in these counties is found in the letter of the 
United States attorney, marked Exhibit B. 

Exhibit C contains a copy of report by Mr. D. H. 
Starbuck, United States attorney for North Caro- 
lina. It presents a list of the names of thirty-seven 
persons who were convicted or pleaded guilty of 
violations of the acts of Congress approved April 20, 
1871, and May 31, 1870, with their sentences annexed ; 
the names of nine hundred and forty-four other 
persons indicted at Raleigh for similar violations. 

There are one hundred and five indictments on 
the docket, embracing the larger number of persons 
mentioned above for conspiracies. 

The report marked Exhibit D details the necessity 
for an enforcement of the laws in North Carolina 
for the security of life and person and property. 



The United States attorney for the southern dis- 
trict of Mississippi reports, in regard to the enforce- 
ment of the acts aforementioned in his district, a 
list of one hundred and fifty-two names of persons 
indicted in the United States courts, with the 
offenses charged against each. This report is dated 
February 17, 1872, and marked Exhibit E. 

The United states attorney for the northern dis- 
trict, G. Willey Wells, esq., reports four hundred and 
ninety names of persons who have been indicted*; 
two hundred of persons arrested ; one hundred and 
seventy-two of persons arrested and bound over; 
twenty-eight of persons who pleaded guilty; four- 
teen of persons who confessed and gave State's 
evidence; which facts are shown by his report, 
marked Exhibit F. 

Ilaving no facilities for obtaining information rel- 
ative to the security of life, person, and property in 
the States mentioned in the resolution, otherwiso 
than by reports from the officers of this Department, 
I addressed communications to the several district 
attorneys asking for information upon this subject 
as to their districts, and I inclose herewith copies of 
their reports, marked Exhibits G, H, I, J, K. 

Reference is also made to the evidence taken upon 
the trials of persons charged with violations of the 
law in different United States courts in said States, 
some of which has been published and is now in the 
possession of the jointSelect Committee on Southern 
Outrages. 

For answer to that part of the resolution asking 
for "all information relative to the existing conflict 
between office-holders in Louisiana." I would re- 
spectfully invite attention to the inclosed copies of 
telegrams and communications, marked Exhibit L, 
as furnishing all the information in the possession 
of this Department in relation to this matter. 

Very respectfully, your obpdient servant, 

GEO. H. WILLIAMS. 
Attorney General. 
The President. 

It would consume too much time to read the 
various reports of the district attorneys from 
which the summary of the AttorneyGeneral is 
made up, and 1 must content myself with a 
reference to two only. The district attorney 
of South Carolina, in a letter dated February 
20 last, uses this language: 

"In regard to the execution of the State laws, I 
have to say that not a single instance of successful 
prosecution of a Ku Klux outrage in any State court 
has come to my knowledge. On the other hand, I 
have heard of several attempts to prosecute; but 
in each instance there was a lamentable failure. 
Unquestionably, the laws of this State, if they could 
be enforced, furnish ample means for the prosecu- 
tion and punishment of these Ku Klux outrages; 
but from the nature of the offenses, and the number 
of the white inhabitants engaged in them, it is 
utterly impossible, in my judgment, to successfully 
prosecute in the State courts in any of the counties," 

The district attorney of North Carolina, in 
a letter to the Attorney General of the 24th 
of January last, uses this language: 

Office United States Attorney, 
Salem, North Carolina, Ftbrv.arp 24, 1872. 

Sir: * * * * These indictments are 
for conspiracies to commit deeds of violence or terror, 
to deter and drive from the ballot-box Union men, 
and to destroy the freedom of elections, to enable 
the enemies of the Union, through their secret, oath- 
bound, midnight organizations, to obtain (without 
open revolt) as complete and effectual control over 
the State as they maintained by open warfare during 
the rebellion. 

The evidence in these cases discloses the horrid 
facts of the tearing of fathers, sons, and brothers 
from the bosom of their families at the hour ot mid- 
night, and the infliction upon their naked flesh of 
the torture and the lash, the brutal exposure of 
helpless females, and, occasionally, the commission 
of murder by bands of disguised men to make their 
intimidations the more emphatic. 



14 



Indeed, every means which the most fertile ima- 
gination of these fiendish monsters and enemies 
of the Union oould invent have been resorted to to 
inspire the Unionists with fear and terror, and to 
destroy their freedom of thought, action, and man- 
hood. 

Had it not been for the passage of said acts of 
Congress and the active enforcement of them the 
spirit of treason would to-day revel in high carnival 
over the entire South, and effectually crush out and 
overawe the Union sentiment of the southern coun- 
try, as it did in the days of the rebel government. 

But the conviction of a number of these persons, 
and their punishment, and the indictment of this 
large number of others, together with the exercise 
by the President of the right to suspend the writ of 
habeas corpus in such localities where treason has 
usurped such dominion as to render the civil au- 
thorities powerless or insufficient to enforce the law, 
seem for the present to have broken the power of 
this widespread conspiracv against the friends of 
the Union in the South. Yet the utmost vigilance 
in the rigid enforcement of these acts of Congress 
is and will be necessary to suppress the spirit of 
treason lurking in the hearts of the disaffected and 
treacherous enemies of the Government, and to pre- 
serve the freedom of the citizen in the full and free 
exercise and enjoyment of the elective franchise 
and the rights and immunities of citizenship. 

I am, very respectfully, yours. &c.. 

D. H. STARBUCK. 
District Attorney for North Carolina. 
Hon. George H. Williams, 

Attorney General United States, Washington. 

This, sir, is not my language; it is the lan- 
guage of Mr. Starbuck, present district attor- 
ney for North Carolina. 

Pardon me, Mr. President, before con- 
cluding the documentary proofs showing the 
necessity of the legislation by Congress and 
the vindication of the President in what 
he has done in suspending the privilege 
of the writ of habeas corpus, in adducing 
one further piece of evidence. I veill now 
submit the facts presented by the grand jury 
of the United States circuit court at its 
recent term at Columbia, in South Caro- 
lina. It is a summing up of the whole 
Ku Klux troubles in that State. It estab- 
lishes three facts to which before read- 
ing the presentment I desire to draw the 
attention of the Senate: first, that the mem- 
berHhij) of the Ku Klux Klan in that Stale 
embraces a large proportion of the whole pop- 
ulation of every profession and class; second, 
that for the violations of law and order and 
the sacred rights of citizens the leading influ- 
ential men were responsible, being frequently 
members of the order; third, that the opera- 
tions of the Ku Klux were invariably directed 
against members of the llepublican party, by 
warnings to leave the country, by wiiippings, 
and by murder. This is the presentment of 
the grand jury : 

/'resrnlmiiit of the (Irnnd Jury. 
To the Judii'X of the Un iteil Sltttrx cinuit court : 

In cloning the labors of the present term, the grand 
jury beg leave to submit the lollowiiig proseutuiont: 
during the whole .ses.-ion Wf have been engaged in 
investigations of llii' iiio.st grave and extraordinary 
character— invc-'tigations of the crimes committed 
by the organization known as the Ivu Klux Klan. 
The evidence eliciti;d \\;\.» been voluminous, gathered 
from the victims themselves and t heir families, as 
well as those who belong to the Klan and partici- 
pated in its crimes. The jury has been shocked 
beyond measure at the developments which have 



been made in their presence of th« number and 
character of the atrocities committed, producing a 
state of terror and a sense of utter insecurity among 
a large portion of the people, especially the colored 
population. The evidence produced before us has 
established the following facts: 

1. That there has existed since 1868, in many coun- 
ties of the State, an organization known as the '" Ku 
Klux Klan," or "Invisible Empire of the South," 
which embraces in its membership a large propor- 
tion of the white populationof every profession and 

2. That this Klan, bound together by an oath, 
administered to its members at the time of their 
initiation into the order, of which the following is a 
copy : 

Obligation. 

"I, [name,] before the immaculate Judge of heaven 
and earth, and upon the holy evangelists of Almighty 
God. do, of my own free will and accord, subscribe 
to the following sacredly binding obligation: 

"1. We are on the side of justice, humanity, and 
constitutional liberty, as bequeathed to us in its 
purity by our forefathers. 

■'2. We oppose and reject the principles of the 
Radical party. 

"3. We pledge mutual aid to each other in sick- 
ness, distress, and pecuniary embarrassment. 

"4. Female friends, widows, and their households, 
shall ever be special objects of our regard and pro- 
tection. 

"Any member divulging, or causing to be divulged, 
any of the foregoing obligations, shall meet the 
fearful penalty and traitor's doom, which is death, 
death, death 1" 

That in addition to this oath the Klan has a con- 
stitution and by-laws, which i)rovidcs, among other 
things, that each member shall furnish himself 
with a pistol, a Ku Klux gown, and a signal instru- 
ment. That the operations of the Klan were exe- 
cuted in the night, and were invariably directed 
against members of the Republican party by warn- 
ings to leave the country, by whippings, and by 
murder. 

3. That in large portions of the counties of York, 
Union, and Spartanburg, to which our attention 
has been more particularly called in our investiga- 
tions, during part of the time for the l:u«t eighteen 
months the civil law has been set at defiance, and 
ceased to afford protection to the citizens. 

4. That the Klan, in carrying out the purposes for 
which it was organized and armed, inflicted sum- 
mary vengeance on the colored citizens of these 
counties, by breaking into their houses at the dead 
of night, dragging them from their beds, torturing 
them in the most inhuman manner, and ia many 
instances murdering them; and this, mainly, on ac- 
count of their political affiliations. Occasionally 
additional reasons operated, but in no instance was 
the political feature wanting. 

5. That for this condition of things, for all these 
violations of law and order, and the sacred rights 
of citizens, many of the leading men of those coun- 
ties were responsible. It was proven that large 
numbers of the most prominent citizens were mem- 
bers of the order. Many of this class attended 
meetings of the Grand Klan. At a meeting of the 
Grand Klan, held in Spai taiiliiir^c county, at which 
there were reprc'scnl alu c< tidiii the various dens of 
Si)artanburg, York, I'lii.iii, nnd (jliester counties, 
in this State, besides a iiumborlroin North Carolina, 
a resolution was adopted that no raids should bo un- 
dertaken, or any imo whipped or injured by mem- 
bers of the Klan, without orders from the Grand 
Klan. The penalty for violating this resolution was 
one hundred lashes on the bare back for the first 
ofl'ense, and for the second, death. This testimony 
establishes the nature of the discipline enforced in 
the order, and also the fact that many of the men 
who were openly and publicly speaking against the 

i Klan, and pretending to deplore the work of this 
murderous conspiracy, were influential members 9f 
the order, and directing its operations even in detail. 
The jury has been appalled as much at the num- 
ber of outrages as at their character, it appearing 
that eleven murders and over six hundred whip- 
l)ings have been committed in York county alone. 



15 



Our investigation in regard to the other counties 
named has been less full; but it is believed, from the 
testimony, that an equal or greater number has 
been committed in Union, and that the number is 
not greatly less in Spartanburg and Laurens. 

We are of the opinion that the most vigorous 
prosecution of the parties implicated in thesecrimes 
is imperatively demanded; that without this there 
is great danger that these outrages will be con- 
tinued, and that there will bo no security to our 
fellow-citizens of African descent. 

We would say further, that unless the strong arm 
of the Government is interposed to punish these 
crimes committed upon this class of citizens, there 
is every reason to believe that an organized and 
determined attempt at retaliation will be made, 
which can only result in a state of anarchy and 
bloodshed too horrible to contemplate. 

** ******** 

All of which is respectfully subraitied. 

BENJ. ¥. JACKSON, Foreman. 

Mr. President, this paper comes to us from 
the grand jury of the Federal court whose duty 
it was to cast their eyes over the whole State 
of South Carolina and inquire into all viola- 
tions of law of which the court had jurisdic- 
tion. It is a sober statement of facts made by 
a body sworn to make the investigation it has. 
I accept it as evidence of more than common 
value. It shows a state of affairs that in my 
judgment demands the passage of this bill. 
The President has prudently, perhaps with 
over-much caution, exercised the powers which 
Congress vested in him. He has suspended 
the privilege of this writ in but nine counties 
throughout the entire South, when the facts 
would have jusiified him in doing the same 
thing in double the number. If he has erred, 
it has been on the side of the States implicated 
in the conspiracy and against the demands of 
justice and humanity. 

We have witnessed the blessings of the legis- 
lation of last session, and its propriety has 
been amply vindicated in the number of indict- 
ments found, the punishments inflicted, the 
flight of the guilty parties, and in the check 
which has been given to the whippings and 
outrages in that quarter that were the disgrace 
of our civilization. I believe our duty requires 
us as legislators, chargeable with giving pro- 
tection to the weak and defenseless, and making 
every man's house his castle, to continue this 
power in the President, to be exerted when- 
ever and wherever the safely of communities 
requires it. That eminent magistrate has no 
higher title to my admiration and gratitude 
than that which comes from the faithful man- 
ner he has endeavored to execute the law.s. I 
take the past as a pledge that he will not abuse 
the trust we place in his hands by this bill. 

I know, sir, how fashionable it is for the 
Opposition to talk of the bayonet and military 
despotism in connection with the policy pur- 
sued by this Administration in its attempt to 
give security to the down-trodden people of the 
South. But, sir, all government is force. 
Behind every statute lie in ambush civil offi- 
cers with posses and soldiers with bayonets 
charged with its execution. When the law 
commands this or forbids that, it ijs the spoken 
word of sovereignty which compels obedience 



^^k^^^ comma 
■H^fn^ord 



by employing the whole civil, and if need be, 
the whole military force of the State. Laws 
were idle words without this power. The Con- 
stitution of the nation in explicit termsclothes 
Congress with authority to make laws, and 
with power to provide for calling forth the mili- 
tia to execute them. There is not a single State 
whose constitution does not place at the con- 
trol of its Chief Magistrate the whole niilitary 
force, to be used when occasion requires in 
keeping the peace and enforcing observance of 
the laws. One of the purposes of the standing 
Army we keep on foot is to repress insurrec- 
tion and give aid to the civil arm. If there 
ever was a time in the history of this country 
when civil law needed the aid of military power 
to curb the lawless and to protect life and lib- 
erty, it has been during the last few years in 
those disturbed parts of the South where trea- 
son abounded and has wreaked its vengeance 
upon those who were faithful to the Union. 
To no nobler use can the Army be dedicated 
than in making war upon the men banded 
together to break up the very foundations of 
society, overthrow law, and bring on a state 
of general anarchy and crime; and I trustatid 
hope its mission will not cease until this Ku 
Klux Klan is wholly suppressed and its mem- 
bers brought to condign punishment. 

Sir, briefly and imperfectly have I endeav- 
ored to set forth the false excuses given for 
these disorders and violences. Did these 
excuses really have a foundation, it would not 
the less be our duty to see that the supremacy 
of the laws was maintained, and no man de- 
prived of his rights except by due process 
of law. I do not believe there is a civilized 
Government on the earth where human rights 
have been trampled under foot to such an 
extent and with such impunity as in these 
insurrectionary States during the last four 
years. We shall be false to our duty and 
recreant to the trust placed in our hands if we 
do not listen to the cries of these oppressed 
people and put a stop to this wholesale shed- 
ding of blood and these other outrages which 
shock humanity. 

While I speak the country is excited over 
the punishment inflicted by a court-martial in 
Cuba upon a man who claims with doubtful 
title to be an American citizen. Democratic 
orators denounce the Administration with 
pusillanimity and cowardice for not stretching 
forth the arm of the Government to release 
Dr. Houard and extort from Spain the restor- 
ation of his property. Yet these same gen- 
tlemen are wholly insensible to the cries which 
come up from the loyal people of the South. 
American citizens at home may be murdered 
by scores by the men lately in rebellion 
against the Government, and yet the sensi- 
bilities of these gentlemen are not touched. 
They are terribly exercised, however, lest 
the Constitution may be wounded when we 
propose efficient remedies. It is the same 
old lament we heard all through the war, 



16 



when Congress enacted laws, and the Presi- 
dent put them in force calculated to hurt 
the enemy and directed against the same men 
now engaged in this minor rebellion. There 
was scarcely a law proposed lor the vigorous 
prosecution of the war which did not encounter 
the opposition of the Democratic party, and 
which was not denounced as unconstitutional 
by Democratic organs all over the country. 
And it was so as to every law enacted to 
secure the results of the war and give equal 
rights to those who had been in slavery. 
It was so a year ago when the remedy given 
by this bill and which has proved so potent 
for good was proposed and enacted into a law. 



And yet, despite the gloomy forebodings we 
heard then, the public liberties have been 
preserved, the country has enjoyed a high 
degree of prosperity, and nobody has been 
disturbed in the enjoyment of his lawful 
rights. Nobody has been hurt by the denial 
of this writ of habeas corpus except the crim- 
inal men whom the courts have been able to 
punish by reason of its suspension. Let these 
gentlemen croak on ; it is their occupation 
and stock in trade. We shall never do vio- 
lence to this sacred instrument while in the 
future, as in the past, we legisla'e to secure 
to all and everywhere the blesi-ings of life, 
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





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